


West of the Mountains and East of the Sea

by fredbassett



Category: Primeval, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24425890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: Getting stuck on the wrong side of an anomaly isn’t Ryan’s favourite thing, especially when he has to break the no contact rule.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	West of the Mountains and East of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annariel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/gifts).



> This is a sort of sequel to [Shafted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5931154).

“That wasn’t meant to happen.” 

Connor stared in almost comical dismay at the empty space that the anomaly had inhabited only moments before.

Ryan suppressed the urge to swear. “I thought it was meant to be good for at least another ten hours. Lester refused to sanction a recce on anything else.”

“Not quite an exact science yet,” the lad mumbled, flushing red to the roots of his slightly greasy hair.

The rest of the science team hadn’t even made it through before the anomaly had abruptly vanished, leaving Ryan with only Connor, Lyle and Blade. They had nothing more than a few power bars each and only the weapons they carried.

The three of them had automatically taken up a defensive formation around Connor while carrying out a rapid assessment of their situation. They were in a landscape that bore a close resemblance to the remoter parts of the Welsh countryside where Ryan had spent a lot of time on training exercises. And in common with Wales, the weather looked shit. A bank of dark cloud was being driven across a slate-grey sky by a biting wind. A rumble of thunder didn’t bode well, either.

“Do we stay put or look for shelter?” Lyle asked, not wasting his breath on recriminations.

“Connor, what are the chances of it coming back quickly?” Ryan was tempted to add, or coming back at all, but bit that back. Connor was no doubt feeling bad enough without having his nose rubbed in it.

Connor shrugged. “It’s been coming and going for three days. This is the only time it’s not done what the readings predicted.” He looked up at the sky. “If this is going to turn into an electric storm, maybe that’s the reason it’s closed early.”

“Any science to back that up?” Lyle asked.

“None at all,” Connor admitted with a grin, his habitual cheerfulness returning. “Not yet, anyway.”

A louder clap of thunder came from the east and jagged lightning split the grey sky. What started as a light patter of rain quickly turned heavy. Connor, wearing only a waistcoat over a thin shirt, wrapped his arms around himself and shivered as the rain dripped off the brim of his trilby.

Lyle slipped off his tac vest, took off his black jacket and held it out to him. Connor accepted it with a grateful look.

“We need to find shelter,” Ryan said. “We can come back here when the storm’s over.”

“Might be a track over there, boss,” Blade said, pointing to the north.

At Ryan’s nod, they moved off at a fast walk, rifles held across their chests in case of trouble, making sure to keep Connor between them. The wind was blowing strongly from the east, and the interval between the thunderclaps and the lightning flashes was steadily decreasing. The track turned out to be a rough road, wide enough to take two cars, provided they had a disposable attitude to wing mirrors. There were no tyre marks, but the surface was rutted into what looked like cart tracks and Ryan could also see hoofprints on the rapidly softening ground.

The road was aligned almost due east-west. For no reason Ryan turned west. It seemed as good a choice as any.

They walked for fifteen minutes with no sign of shelter other than the occasional lone tree, but with the storm getting steadily more vicious and lighting strikes coming every couple of minutes, standing under a tree wasn’t an attractive prospect. The rain turned to hail, vicious white balls striking like they’d been fired out of an airsoft submachine gun. They stung Ryan’s head, the exposed back of his neck and his hands, making him wish for once that he routinely wore gloves.

Connor trudged along miserably, still shivering despite the borrowed jacket. Lyle, wearing only a tight fitting teeshirt and his tac vest, was pale with cold and even the normally stoic Blade looked distinctly unimpressed. While they’d been walking, the grey light had diminished and was now giving way to full darkness. They were making their way along the track by the light of the under-barrel torch on Ryan’s M4.

“Shit!” Connor stumbled, pitching forward onto his hands and knees, his hat flying off his head in the wind.

Ryan managed to make a grab for the trilby before it ended up in the next county. Lyle and Blade hauled Connor to his feet.

“OK, mate?” Lyle asked.

“Turned my ankle on a stone.” Connor’s teeth chattered on the words. “’m all right.” He took a step and promptly cried out in pain as his ankle knuckled under him.

“Careful,” Lyle said, sliding his arm around Connor’s waist. “Can you put any weight on it at all?”

Connor tried, with slightly more success. With help from Lyle, he was able to hobble along, but their progress was now painfully slow.

“Boss, I think I caught a light up ahead,” Blade said in a low voice. “Should I take a look?”

Ryan promptly switched off the torch. “Yes, but no contact.”

“On it.” Blade slipped ahead, moving as surely as a hunting cat in the darkness and was out of sight almost immediately, blending in with the darkness.

They waited in silence to one side of the track. 

The rain turned to hail again. Connor pulled his hat down over his ears, his hands shaking violently. Ryan knew that if they didn’t find shelter quickly, the lad could easily end up hypothermic. He glanced at his watch. Blade had been gone ten minutes.

“It’s a pub.” The words came out of the darkness in Blade’s distinctive Yorkshire accent. “There’s a sign that says The Forsaken Inn.”

“Fucking apt,” Lyle commented. “Is it open?”

“Lights are on and I heard voices. Not exactly cheerful looking, but better than standing out here. Think we might have to say fuck it to no contact, boss.”

One look at Connor told Ryan the young soldier was right.

“Let’s go for it,” he said. “We can’t afford to fuck around out here. If the sign’s in English, we might have struck lucky.”

They hurried on, hail hammering on their backs. 

The inn looked as dreary as any South Wales valley pub Ryan had ever seen. Grey stone and a cheerless exterior didn’t exactly invite passing trade.

“Looks a bit like the Hunters’,” Lyle commented, referring to the cavers’ pub on the Mendip Hills near Lester’s cottage.

“If they do faggot and peas, we’re in luck,” Blade said. “What do we do with the rifles, boss?”

“Claim we’re on exercises,” Ryan decided. “Sling ‘em over your backs. Looks less threatening that way.”

**** 

Ryan knew it was going to be one of those pubs the minute he lifted the rusty iron latch and pushed open the heavy wooden door. 

The first thing he noticed was that it was one of those pubs where a stranger walks in and the whole pub falls silent. One of those pubs where a stranger walks in and everyone turns and looks at the stranger who’s just walked in. The only difference between this place and some of those pubs other Ryan had been in was that the drinkers in the Forsaken Inn weren’t so much openly hostile as wary and watchful. Very wary and exceedingly watchful. 

The second thing he noticed, in the same split second was that the drinkers were mostly quite heavily armed. Most of them – all male, as far as he could see – carried knifes attached to their belts. Some had swords, and there were even quite a few axes, and not the sort you used for chopping wood. They were dressed in a strange assortment of clothes, from tunics to woollen shirts tucked into homespun trousers. Some wore high-topped leather boots. To one side of the room sat a group who appeared no bugger than ten-year-old children but had the faces of adults, with curly dark hair, and three of them were smoking carved wooden pipes. They were the only ones who appeared to be unarmed and despite the foul weather, they were barefoot on the flagged floor.

“Not in Kansas any more, Toto,” Lyle muttered from behind him.

A fire burned brightly in a large, open fireplaces with large piles of logs stacked on either side. The room was mainly lit by candles, with some lanterns hanging from the walls, casting shadows over the faces that turned to stare, making them hard to read. The bar, at the opposite end of a simple, oblong room was plain wood, with a row of barrels behind it on a shelf, along with a few dusty bottles. The inn was the sort of place Ryan expected to see stuffed animal heads mounted on the walls, but instead, they were bare grey stone, as cheerless as the exterior.

With any hum of conversation having died, Ryan had no idea whether he would even be understood if he asked for a drink at the bar, and he very much doubted that he had money in his pocket that would be an acceptable currency, but he couldn’t just stand there doing nothing…

He walked up to the bar, nodding to the man standing behind it who was staring expectantly at him.

“We got caught by the storm,” Ryan offered.

The man nodded. “Bad night to be out.”

The accent was unfamiliar, but the words were entirely comprehensible.

“Not from round ‘ere, masters…?”

“No. Just passing through and hoping for some shelter until this clears up.”

“No rooms left, but you’re welcome to dry off in front of the fire. Can I be getting you gentlemen a drink?”

“I don’t think we have anything we could pay you with,” Ryan admitted. 

“Robbed on the road?” the man said, with the sort of cynical look that Ryan had expected to receive. “’appened a lot recently. Well, I won’t be charging you to dry off, and a drink of water costs nowt. That lad looks like ‘ee’s ‘ad a bit of an accident.”

“Tripped and fell,” Connor stammered, through still chattering teeth. “Hurt my ankle.”

“Then you’d best get sat down and warmed up.” The innkeeper’s tone wasn’t unkind, which was probably more courtesy than a bunch of oddly dressed strangers claiming to have no money deserved.

“Thank you, that’s very good of you.”

“Aye, so it is.” There was a glint of humour in the man’s shrewd brown eyes.

Ryan walked over to the fireplace. Of the two carved wooden chairs on either side of the fire, only one was occupied. The man’s face, shrouded in long dark hair flecked with grey, was turned to the fire. He was dressed in black, a heavy tunic belted over breeches ticked into well worn boots. A heavy fur cloak was draped over the back of the chair. He looked shorter than average height but was strongly built. A sheathed sword was across his knees and an axe was propped up against the chair.

“If no one is sitting there, would you mind if my friend took that chair?” Ryan asked, keeping his voice low and friendly. “He’s soaking wet and has injured his ankle.”

The man turned, an amused expression on his handsome, aquiline face. “He’s not the only one who’s soaking wet, Captain Tom Ryan. All four of you are leaving puddles on the floor.”

Ryan stared at the man, surprise warring with relief. “Thorin?”

The man – or rather dwarf, as he’d insisted on being called – stood up and bowed. “Thorin Oakenshield at your service.” The he opened his arms and enveloped Ryan in a hug that would have caused a grizzly bear to gasp and beg for quarter.

“I’d not thought to see you again,” Thorin said, stepping back and eying Ryan from top to toe.

“I could say the same,” Ryan admitted. 

He’d last seen Thorin two years ago, when he’d been knocked through an anomaly by an irritated ankylosaur in Epping Forest. He’d saved the dwarf’s life when he’d been attacked by goblins and they’d spent two weeks together, waiting for an anomaly to open to return Ryan home. He’d drawn a discreet veil over the contact in his subsequent report. He’d never been able to work out where – or when – he’d been, so saying very little had been the easiest option.

“Found yourself on the wrong side of a ball of light again?” Thorin said.

Ryan nodded. “We’re hoping it will open again when this storm’s over. Thorin, these are my friends, Connor Temple, Jon Lyle and Niall Richards.”

Thorin bowed again. “At your service.”

Connor stared at him, his eyes as wide as saucers. Lyle kicked him on his good ankle, clearly hoping to forestall whatever was about to blurt out of the lad’s mouth.

“Sit down and get that wet jacket off, Conn,” Lyle said.

“You all need something hot to drink,” Thorin declared.

“Our coin won’t work for payment here, Thorin,” Ryan said. “And we haven’t got anything we can trade. We might need our weapons.”

“You saved my life. I can stand you a few rounds of drink, and some food. This storm is set for the night. There’s space enough in my room for us all. The floor will be hard, but it’ll be hard and dry, which is better than outside.” He called out to the innkeeper for four hot honey brandies, then dragged over three empty chairs.

Installed in front of the fire, their rifles set down as discreetly as possible, Ryan was glad of the warmth, and even more glad to have met Thorin Oakenshield again. He was clearly a well-known and respected customer and as soon as they’d sat down with him, the rest of the drinkers had turned back to their conversations and the hum in the bar had gradually increased.

He sipped the hot drink, warming his hands on the mug. “Are you sitting out the storm as well?”

“Blacksmithing and trading,” Thorin said. “I have not travelled this far east for some years, but the inn always made a good meeting place. Beyond here the lands are mostly empty. The last time we met was five days travel north of here.”

They sat for the most part in companionable silence, their clothes drying in the warmth and gradually Connor stopped shivering. Lyle bound his swollen ankle with a bandage from their small medi-packs and insisted he took a couple of painkillers. After a while, Ryan noticed that Thorin was casting glances at the door and he thought he detected a hint of concern in the dwarf’s vivid blue eyes.

“Expecting someone?” he asked quietly.

“My nephews,” Thorin said. “They went to do some work at an outlying farm yesterday and have not yet returned.”

“How long overdue?”

“Most of the day.”

As Ryan knew, the laconic dwarf was not the worrying kind. “What haven’t you told me?”

Thorin laughed. “Many things, my strange friend. I will admit that I thought of you a mere two days ago. A traveller reported seeing queer lights in the hills.”

Ryan didn’t like the sound of the plural.

“How many?” Connor asked, breaking in eagerly.

Thorin shrugged. “Like a cluster of stars fallen to earth, is what I was told.”

The description wasn’t comforting. Multiple anomalies were always bad news.

“Any reports of strange animals?” Lyle asked.

“No, but these are desolate lands. Travellers come and go and some disappear. Wolves lurk in the hills and have been known to stray down to the road in winter.”

“We can help search for your nephews,” Ryan said.

“Not in this storm,” Thorin said. “But I thank you for the offer, Ryan. We will see what the morning brings. Your light – the anomaly, as you call it – might have returned by then.”

Thorin called for more drinks and some food. The innkeeper brought over tankards of decent beer with a strong, hoppy flavour, followed by bowls of a thick, meaty stew accompanied by large chunks of brown bread accompanied by pats of butter.

As the evening wore on some of the drinkers drifted out into the night, pulling cloaks around them with hoods drawn up over their heads. Neither the rain nor the thunder had diminished, but with all windows now shuttered, they couldn’t tell whether the lightning had stopped. Others made their way up to bed, calling thanks to the innkeeper. Soon, they were the only people left in the main room. Connor had already fallen asleep in the chair, curled onto his side, with his hat pulled over his eyes.

“He’s no fighter,” Thorin commented.

“He advises us on the anomalies,” Ryan said. 

“You respect him.”

“We learned to value him.”

“Took a while,” Lyle said with grin. “We even like him now.”

Moving only his hand, Connor made a rude gesture. Not quite as asleep as he’d seemed.

Thorin barked a laugh. “It seems our worlds have more in common than just a spoken tongue.”

A thump on the inn door brought Thorin to his feet, ready to sweep his sword from its scabbard if needed. The door opened and a young dwarf came through in a hurry, chest heaving with exertion, dark hair plastered to his head by the rain. He had an axe in his hands and Ryan immediately saw that there was blood on the blade. 

“Kíli, at last! Where’s Fíli?” Thorin demanded urgently.

“Here!” A second dwarf barrelled through the door, hair braids swinging wildly. “My little brother can still beat me in a sprint.”

“Always could,” the one addressed as Kíli said, sweeping a sketchy bow.

“Are either of you injured?”

“Only in our pride,” Fíli responded. “I suggest we barricade the door.”

“What is out there?”

“We have absolutely no idea,” Kíli admitted, turning the iron key in the lock as the innkeeper carried over a heavy oak table, helped by Blade.

“Big as a horse but hairless. Hide like leather, temperament like a mountain troll…” his brother supplied.

“Runs like a wolf,… teeth like daggers.”

The door rattled under a bone shaking thump.

“Did I mention the temperament?” Fíli said. He glanced over at the innkeeper. “Apologies for leading it to your door, Mr Brocklebank…”

“…but we had run out of other options…” his brother finished for him.

The innkeeper gave a slight bow. “At your service, as ever.”

Thorin laughed and clapped the man on the back.

“We need to see what we’re dealing with,” Ryan said. “Can you take our friend to an upstairs window?” he asked the innkeeper. “He might be able to identify it. Tell your other guests to stay upstairs and stay away from the windows. Lyle, go with Connor.”

With his rifle cradled in his arms, Lyle followed the innkeeper to the stairs. 

Connor, flushed with the heat of the fire and the dramatic entrance of the two young dwarves, followed, still limping.

“Are there any other doors?” Ryan asked Thorin.

“One, at the back.”

“Blade, find it and block it.”

“On it, boss.”

Fíli and Kíli looked at Ryan with undisguised interest.

“Captain Tom Ryan, these are my nephews, Fíli and Kíli. Their entrances are not usually so dramatic.”

Ryan gave a slight bow. “At your service.”

“And at yours!” The two young dwarves swept into deep bows, both smiling broadly.

“Now can we start hunting instead of being hunted?” Kíli asked. 

“Depends on what’s trying to batter the door down,” Ryan said as the it shook under the onslaught.

“By the way, you’re late,” Thorin commented.

“Apologies,” the pair chorused in unison. 

“We were delayed by an excess of farm implements in desperate need of repair,” Kíli said.

Fíli jangled a leather purse tied to his belt. “They paid well.”

“Then we’ll say no more of it.”

Footsteps clattered on the wooden stairs. Lyle came down, taking them two at a time. “Boy Wonder says it’s a gorgonopsid.”

“Just our fucking luck.”

“It comes from one of the anomalies?” Thorin asked.

“Yes, but not the one the one we came through,” Ryan said. 

“Connor says they can track like bloodhounds,” Lyle commented. “It could have picked up a scent and followed it for days if it was after food.”

“There are two of them,” Blade said, coming back into the main room at a run. “I heard snuffling. I’ve bolted and barred the back door and piled some stuff up behind it. It’s smaller than this one, so it might not even get through.”

The gorgonopsid launched another onslaught on the main door. A crack appeared in the wood.

“Not well equipped for these buggers,” Lyle said. “5.56 mil is like sticking ‘em with a skewer. Half a mag in the brain might do it, but that’s about all.”

Fíli and Kíli eyed the M4s speculatively.

“Are those weapons?” Kíli asked.

Ryan nodded. “But we’ll have trouble taking those things down with them.”

“So we use our axes.” Thorin had buckled his sword belt around his waist and was now fingering the blade of his double-headed axe.

“They’re like nothing you’ve ever encountered before, Thorin,” Ryan said. “They’re powerful, fast and fearless.”

“They live, so they can die.” 

Blade grinned wolfishly.

“Let’s not aim for suicidal at this stage,” Ryan said.

“If you say so, boss.”

“Goes against the grain to turn customers away,” the innkeeper said from the stairs. “But they don’t look like the sort to stand their round.”

“Unlike us, you mean?” Lyle grinned at the man.

“I’ve a soft ‘eart, laddie.”

“He just hides it well,” Thorin said dryly.

“Breakages must be paid for!” Fíli and Kíli intoned, in a passable imitation of Brocklebank’s dour accent.

“If there’s anything of value down here, I’d get it upstairs, sir,” Lyle told him. 

“Wouldn’t worry too much. Most of yon barrels need changing anyway and the furniture’s not worth the effort.”

A roar from outside signalled that the gorgonopsid was still out there, and by the sound of its grunts, snorts and snarls, was getting frustrated A moment later, the door splintered under the force of a headbutt that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Gorbals pub on a Friday night.

“Two more of them and we’ll have company,” Lyle predicted.

“Upstairs, please, Mr Brocklebank,” Ryan said. “Lyle, chuck some lead at it from a window up there. There’s no way it can get up that high from outside and you might get lucky. Everyone else upstairs as well.”

“I will not cower from a fight!” Thorin said, swinging his axe, a dangerous glint in his sharp blue eyes.

“You’ll get your fight. Trust me, Thorin, our chances of taking it down with our weapons aren’t high, but we might weaken it. And don’t forget, there’s a second one out there as well.”

Thorin moved reluctantly past Ryan to stand high on the wide wooden staircase at the back of the room that ran up along the back wall of the inn, Fíli and Kíli flanked him on either side of him. Ryan and Blade were below him, their rifles trained on the door.

“Their weapons sound like a small thunderclap,” Thorin told his nephews. “And spit fire like a dragon. Whatever happens, do not get between them and their prey.”

Directly on cue, the rattle of automatic fire came from above their heads. Four three-round bursts.

Despite Thorin’s warning, Kíli let out a startled gasp, quickly bitten back.

“Might as well be playing at fucking acupuncture!” Lyle yelled.

“Try again!” Ryan ordered.

Another burst from Lyle’s M4 split the silence, followed by a roar and splintering crash.

The gorgonopsid’s head and shoulders came through a large hole in the door.

Blade, down on one knee on the stairs, put three shots straight into its open jaws.

The creature shook its head and powered forward, ripping the door off its hinges.

Blade fired again. 

The gorgonopsid shook off the remains of the door as it charged into the inn. 

If the door had only been smaller, life would have been a lot easier, Ryan thought, as his finger squeezed the trigger again, keeping the pressure on this time. Finesse wasn’t getting them anywhere, so it was time for some classic spray and pray.

The creature roared in defiance and shook its head from side to side. Wooden barrel tables broke like matchwood and chairs were trampled underfoot.

The fucking things could take a hell of a lot of damage and still keep coming, and this time there wasn’t a handy Hilux driven at speed to come to the rescue. Ryan had been half-tempted to give the order to retreat upstairs and get the dwarves to use their axes to destroy the staircase, but he knew they couldn’t leave two hungry gorgonopsids to rampage around the countryside. They had to take both of them down and hope there were any others out there.

Red holes bloomed on its grey hide like obscene rose petals, but there was no sign of it losing power or motivation to kill.

The spraying did bugger all good and in Ryan’s experience praying never worked either. The second his magazine emptied, he dropped out the empty one and reached into the webbing of his tac vest for a replacement.

At the same moment, Blade’s M4 fell ominously silent. “Fucking jam, boss.” For all the emotion in his voice, the soldier could have been talking about a filing cabinet drawer in the office.

“Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!” With a ringing cry, Thorin vaulted over the stair rail, swinging his axe and laying open a deep red furrow on the gorgonopsid’s shoulder.

Ryan rammed his clip home and fired, going for a head shot. More red blood splattered out of the side of its skull, but he failed to get the money shot.

“Khazâd! Khazâd!” Fíli and Kíli followed Thorin, landing as nimbly as cats on the flagged floor and rushing at the gorgonopsid with reckless courage.

Blade tossed his jammed carbine aside, unsheathed his Fairbairn Sykes fighting knife and dived after them.

The gorgonopsid smacked its head into Fili, sending him flying across the floor.

From upstairs, Ryan heard more shots and knew that Lyle must be trying to bring down the second creature before it could join the already riotous party. He got another couple of bursts in, but the risk of friendly fire was now too fucking high.

Leaving the M4 on the stairs, he unholstered his Glock 17. Its 9mm bullets would have more stopping power at close quarter.  
The fight was grisly. Ryan took no pleasure in taking down any creature, even if it was trying to kill him, but it had to be done. They couldn’t hope to subdue one of nature’s most efficient killing machines and simply return it home, even if they could find the anomaly it had come through.

The dwarves swung their axes relentlessly, stopping the gorgonopsid getting a grip with its jaws. Ryan concentrated on head shots when he got a clear line of sight, which wasn’t easy, as the three dwarves danced around their prey with deadly grace, their strange, guttural battle cry ringing around the inn in counterpoint to the creature’s ear-splitting roars. Some of the lamps had been wrecked and they fought now in the guttering light of a few remaining candles.

With a ringing cry, Thorin leaped forward, swinging his axe over his head to bring it down on with his full strength on the gorgonopsid’s skull. The creature buckled and started to fall, ripping the axe from the dwarf’s hands. Blade was by his side in a heartbeat, burying his knife in its neck, rewarded by a hot rush of blood and he dragged it out.

Another roar came from the doorway. The second gorgonopsid, attracted by the stench of blood, started to push its way into the wreckage of the room. Without hesitation, Fili and Kíli leaped towards it, one to either side, their axes sweeping through the air, aimed at the outstretched neck. The gorgonopsid died without another sound.

The two young dwarves stepped back and swept deep bows to their audience. “Fíli and Kíli, at your service!”

**** 

The storm cleared overnight to leave a cornflower blue sky fanned only by a light breeze.

The inside of the inn still looked like a cross between the world’s worst regulated abattoir and the sergeants’ mess at Hereford after a good Saturday night. The axes of the dwarves had made short work of the huge carcasses, now piled up on top of dry wood, including the shattered barrel tables and chairs, ready for Brocklebank to light the pyre.

“Do you think your way home will have opened again?” Thorin asked Connor.

“Hope so!” the young man replied. 

“If not, we’ll be back,” Ryan said. “And if we can borrow axes and some tools, we’ll do our best to pay our way.”

“You’ll be welcome either way,” Brocklebank said, bending to put a long match to the wood. “And there’ll always be drinks behind the bar for you here.”

Hands were solemnly shaken all round, and there were so many ‘at your services’ that Ryan was starting to wonder if they’d ever manage to finish saying their goodbyes.

“Maybe we will meet again, Captain Tom Ryan,” Thorin said.

Ryan smiled. “Maybe we will, Thorin Oakenshield.”

“The axes of the dwarves will forever be at your disposal.”

Fíli and Kíli promptly swept another low bow.

After a final round of bows, they were on their way.

The glances Connor kept casting at the sky were more optimistic than concerned. His puppyish excitement at the whole contact was infectious, and they walked – or limped, in Connor’s case – cheerfully retracing their steps from the night before.

As they got closer to the anomaly site, Connor was torn between checking the state of the weather and the needle of the compass in his hand.

“It’s twitching!”

“Thank fuck for that,” Lyle muttered. “How much of this is going in the official report?”

“We spent an uneventful night waiting for it to reopen, didn’t we?”

“So how do we explain Blade’s new axe fetish?”

“Nothing wrong with axes,” Blade said, a slight smile lifting his usually impassive stare.

Ryan dispensed one of his best Paddington Bear hard stares at the green-eyed killer. “You are not carrying a fucking axe on a shout.”

Blade’s look of innocence as he stepped into the anomaly provided Ryan with no comfort whatsoever.


End file.
